


We Are The Kids From Yesterday

by xsilverdreamsx



Category: Captain America (2011), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Feelings All The Feelings, Gen, Steve Rogers Is Lonely, Tony Stark Has No Filter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-21
Updated: 2011-10-21
Packaged: 2017-10-24 20:21:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/267501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xsilverdreamsx/pseuds/xsilverdreamsx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Steve talks about his feelings, and Tony sort of doesn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Are The Kids From Yesterday

**Author's Note:**

> So, okay, I had a tiring day, and maybe a tiring week. And I kinda threw around some words and feelings and got this?  
> Beta'ed by Etharei, who added hearts randomly and managed to control my addiction to commas. ♥
> 
> Based off the Avengers movie trailer, after the _ohmygodstensionUSTeyefucking_ scene between Tony and Steve in the lab.
> 
> Title taken from "The Kids From Yesterday" by My Chemical Romance. There are no kids in this fic, don't let the title fool you.

Memories hurt.

Steve lets the images wash over him, as he thinks back to the 40s, when he had known who his enemy was, when he had known who his friends were.

Steve thinks back to his friends, to Bucky, to the Howling Commandos, to Peggy, and he feels pain.

Steve looks at the people assessing him, this group of -- this team that Fury has put together, and sees a future he does not understand.

Steve looks into Natasha’s eyes which are filled with pity, sees Clint’s face which is filled with curiosity, and hears Tony’s voice filled with animosity, and wonders what kind of a team he is ending up in.

Later, much later, after the debriefing and after Steve has met all the new members of the his “team”, he ends up sitting on the floor of the display room, his back against the cold metal wall, the protruding bolts digging into his back, he looks up at the glass casing that separates him and the red, white and blue of his past.

Everyone he remembers is gone, everything he understands is different now; the world is faster, angrier, harder.

Steve still sits there, looking at the red, white and blue.

The doors slide open with a hiss, and Stark ( _Tony Stark,_ Steve reminds himself, _and not Howard Stark_ ) stalks in, encased in his Iron Man suit, gleaming and powerful and obviously packing with modern weapons and state-of-the-art technology, and Steve doesn’t understand why they need him - Steve Rogers - when they have Tony Stark.

Stark, who has the more superior weapon here - even though Steve refused to admit it earlier - fits in with this world, this time, never looks displaced, and has a snazzy comeback for everyone while Steve stutters and stumbles over his words and tries to relearn his culture like a drunken sailor on a ship.

The mask slides back, revealing an annoyed looking Tony Stark.

“Come on, what are you doing on the floor, we have to mobilize or something, Fury’s about to have an aneurysm because he thinks you escaped or went back into the ice and why do you look like your grandmother just got rolled over?”

Steve blinks as he is hit with a whole earful of _Tony Stark-speak_.

And then blinks again, and raises his eyebrow and just glares when his brain processes the last sentence.

“What was that about my grandmother?”

Stark looks at him, and rolls his eyes. “Really, seriously, was that the only thing you got out of that sentence? Wake up, Captain, we’ve got a world to save.”

“I thought you didn’t want me to be part of the team.”

This time, Stark blinks. “Wait, what? No, kid, listen--”

Steve practically bristles at this. “I’m not a kid,” he snaps.

“Okay, whatever, _Cap_ , look, I just, I’m not good with, y’know, communication, right? And --”

“I don’t play well with others - that was what you told me, Mr. Stark.”

“Look, I get that you’re,” Stark pauses, trying to find a word that wouldn’t send Steve’s fist on a single path towards his face, “you’re in, I don’t know, you’re feeling displaced right now. But you know what? People _do_ want you on the team, and not because you’re a pretty face, but because you’re good at what you do.”

Steve maybe blushes a little at being called pretty, and tries to focus on something else instead. “People want me on the team? Like who?” Steve asks, disbelievingly.

“Well, like.. like Coulson, right? Coulson definitely gives a shit about you more than he does about me, he’s always asking about you--”

“I think that’s his job--”

“-- and Natasha is mean to me but she always smiles at you, but don’t trust her, she’s a spider--”

“-- Urm, isn’t she the Black Widow--”

“Whatever, and Thor, Thor is this God, right, and Gods care about people and I’m sure he gives a crap about you and he’d want subjects and all --”

“Mr. Stark--”

“--or you know what, maybe not Thor, he’s really got this unhealthy love for his hammer, and well, there’s Bruce, but don’t go near him when he’s green and mean, seriously, his breath stinks--”

“Mr. Stark, wait--”

“-- and _maybeIgiveacrapaboutyoubeingontheteamtoo_ and oh hey, look at the time, baddies to beat up, Loki to catch--”

“ _Tony, STOP TALKING._ ”

Tony shuts up. And tries very hard to look everywhere but at Steve.

“You want me on the team? Really?”

“Oh my god, is that all you got out of that. Okay, you know what, join us, don’t join us, whatever, you’re _Captain America_ for christssake, and Fury definitely thinks that’ll be good for morale and shit, and--”

“-- and you need a trained circus monkey in a suit to be your poster boy again? I don’t think so, Tony.”

Steve is now pissed. Or annoyed. Or maybe a little of both. He hasn’t felt like this in a while, not since he had sat in his bunk, thinking of how they had traded Bucky’s life for Dr. Zola, and wrestling back down the urge to tear something into pieces there and then.

He breathes, once, twice and calms himself down. It’s not Tony’s fault (since when did he start thinking of him as Tony, and not Stark?), he can’t be blamed for being honest.

Steve quietly speaks, “Back then, I was just a kid from Brooklyn, who nobody cared about. Then, suddenly, I was Captain America, with all this strength and height and everyone wanted to get to know me. But then, but then it didn’t last, I realized that they weren’t really there for _me_ , that they didn’t care about _me_ , but only wanted Captain America. They were there for the ideal, for the image.”

He laughs bitterly. It comes out sounding almost sarcastic, and full of sadness and anger and loneliness, and he reflects back to why he felt that way, the emotions which he had revealed to Peggy, and only Peggy, a long time ago.

He continues. “For a long time, I thought I was making a difference, I didn’t know, didn’t understand, that the real guys, the real heroes, were the normal ones who were risking their lives every day, making sure we still had a country to come home to, had a home to wake up to. The men and women who no one will remember when they’re six feet under, when they’ve taken that bullet in the line of duty” Steve pauses, and pushes himself up to his feet, and takes a few steps towards the glass display.

“And now I wake up in this world, where suddenly everyone remembers Captain America, and wants Captain America, but no one remembers or cares about the other guys who made a difference in the war too.”

Steve looks at the display, and back at Tony. “I’ve lost everything, everything I know, except for this. I may be a piece of memorabilia to you, to everyone else, but to me, I’m more than just a poster boy, doing some PR. I’m a soldier, Tony, and this is who I am,” he points at himself, and then at the shield,” and this is all I have left.”

 _This is all I have left._

Tony stares at Steve for a very long time, almost too long, and Steve feels the heat rising on the back of his neck, and opens his mouth to tell the other man off, when Tony steps in front of a panel, presses a few buttons, and the glass display slides open.

Tony reaches in, and pulls out the shield, hefting it, lifting it and turning it over, looking at it with a critical eye, before handing it to Steve.

Steve just looks at him, then at the shield, then back again at Tony, his mouth dropping open.

“Wha-why?”

Tony shrugs. “A soldier needs a good weapon to fight the bad guys. Can’t have you going around being a princess up there.” He flashes Steve a grin. “Besides, I can’t be spending all my time saving your ass, so this is going to take good care of you for a while.”

Steve lets out a chuckle, the first real feeling of warmth that he’s felt in days.

“For the record, Fury doesn’t give a rat’s ass about me either, just my money,” Tony shrugs, and then knocks at his at the metal suit. “Oh, and this guy here. Not the person in it; but the suit.”

“So I get that you’ve been frozen for a really long -- _70 years, right? Damn, that’s a whole new definition of blue balls_ \-- time, and yeah, the world is different and maybe a little strange to you now, and all your memories aren’t worth shit here right now.

“But, that doesn’t mean you can’t make new memories. Or new friends.”

Tony holds out the shield towards Steve, who slowly takes it in his hands, and slots it onto his arm.

And just like that, it feels _right_.

**Author's Note:**

> Marvel owns the characters, and I just make up stuff. A lot. All mistakes (canon or otherwise) are mine.


End file.
